The Gambler : Unabridged Edition

Set in the appropriately named Roulettenburg, a German spa with a casino and an international clientele, The Gambler tells the story of the gambling episodes, tangled love affairs, and complicated lives of Alexey Ivanovitch, a young gambler, Polina Alexandrovna, the woman he loves, a pair of French adventurers, and other characters. Welcomed into the colorful court of parasites revolving around a now ruined general, the protagoist is won over by the demon of gambling and becomes a professional risk-taker who impassively suffers wins and losses and accepts good and bad fortune with the same indifference, the same nobility, the same imperturbable calm. Although not as dark as some of Dostoyevsky's other works, The Gambler nevertheless offers a grim and psychologically probing picture of the fatal attractions of gambling.